Available now please restart your storefront or be patient if it does not appear for you, these updates can take some time to be rolled out to every region due to how the storefronts are set up.
Update Video: youtu.be/N9MC7GZSan8
New Awesome
- New Tack Shooter Paragon, the Crucible of Steel and Flame. Tacks, blades, fire - what more could there be? Well, plenty actually, as the Monkeys realized they can cram blades full of hot tacks! We could leave it at that, but for those who’d like a little more detail, read on!
- Constantly attacking with a short range maelstrom of white hot blades that burst into a nova of tacks when they expire, this paragon creates quite a spectacle to behold. The tack monkey inside (!) is unable to see unrevealed Camo Bloons, however with its 2 abilities this isn’t enough to hold back its power.
- Maelstrom ability: given that the main attack already is a permanent maelstrom, this ability gives the tower a massive temporary increase to projectile lifespan & pierce in order to greatly expand the coverage of that local maelstrom. While this is occurring, high pierce jets of blue flame will periodically blast around the tower to wipe out any smaller targets. This is a coverage & cleanup ability, so it has an extremely short cooldown but is not a single target damage dealer.
- Meteor Impact: As the Maelstrom ability is more of a utility, a second ability is here to bring the damage! Meteor Impact calls down a blast that deals high damage to an unfair area, and any Bloons foolish enough to withstand the initial impact will be wiped out when this meteor breaks apart into a ring of 32 homing fireballs
Game Changes / Additions
- 2024 Hero Packs including all heroes and skins up to 2024 from the game start. This includes a full pack of every hero & skin, which is substituted for a small completion pack for players who already own many of these.
- Blastapopoulos added to Contested Territory
Bug Fixes & General Changes
- Resolved a number of localization issues
- Hero hotkey should function again without a delay when restarting a game
- Failing Quest objectives no longer shows a victorious monkey on the summary screen
- Resolved an issue with certain high starting round challenges crashing with Fast Track
- Having only "Selected Hero" in the Challenge Editor should no longer prevent the challenge from being played
- Resolved an edge case that could cause heroes to gain less XP from Fast Track when also benefiting from Empowered Heroes
- Owned Avatars within with profile selection menu will now order to the top
- CHIMPS mode should no longer offer a ‘retry last round’ on the very first round
- Resolved a crash that could sometimes eventually occur when rapidly placing and selling a heli then placing and selling a mortar then placing and selling a heli then placing and selling a mortar then placing and selling a heli then placing and selling a mortar, probably.’
- Hero placement animations should display correctly when hero levels during placement
- Resolved a bug that could cause attacks to bypass Vortex’s skull immunity window
- Resolved a number of reported elusive game crashes that could occur
- Resolved a number of prop texture issues in Map Editor
- Removed a deal pixel from many text entry fields
- Fixed a number of map texture issues
Events & Quests
- The Slime Counter on the A Slimey Expedition quest should no longer break on restart
- Resolved a case in which Collection Events could softlock while claiming rewards
- Resolved an issue that could cause dialogue to not correctly display
- Elite Blastapopoulos should now take extra damage from paragons
Map Specific
- Ancient Portals resolved a case in which some towers retained buffs after being moved away from buff platforms
- Engineer cleansing foam now layers correctly on Ancient Portal
Tower Specific Fixes
Dart Monkey
- 502 Ultra Juggernaut should no longer have less knockback than the previous tier
Bomb Shooter
- x5x MOAB Eliminator’s ability explosion correctly deals explosive damage
Monkey Sub
- Sub Paragon should no longer keep its radiation attack when unsubmerged
Monkey Buccaneer
- 510 Plane radial projectile speed should no longer decrease when upgraded (100 > 200)
Mortar Monkey
- 032 Heavy Shells can now apply Burny Stuff to DDTs if it has camo detection
Druid
- 032 Druid of the Jungle’s vine attack should now benefit from Heart of Vengeance
Mermonkey
- xx4 Symphonic Resonance resolved a crash that could occur when repositioning the totem after spawning Blastapopoulos
- Lord of the Abyss's radius should no longer cause new Mermonkey primed for placement to display incorrectly range circles
Banana Farm
- xx1 EZ Collect bananas should be more effectively collected by Banana Farmers
Engineer
- Paragon’s Green Sentry should no longer display a non-functional ‘first’ target prio when first placed
- xx5 XXL Trap when created will clear any existing XXXL traps owned by the player, this will now allow the newly placed engineer to place its trap without requiring the old trap to be filled first
Beast Handler
- Resolved an issue with Beast placement clipping through the void in some cases
Ezili
- Lv3 Heartstopper can be used when Blastapopoulos is the only ‘Purple’ Bloon on screen
Pat Fusty
- Kaiju Pat should correctly use his 'mechanized' voice lines at level 20
Geraldo
- Gerry’s Fire should no longer gain its own range circle when attached to xx4 Mermonkey
- Geraldo’s shop should correctly be stunned by Blastapopoulos
Rosalia
- Resolved an issue with some of Rosalia’s attacks undercounting on stat tracking
Platform Specific fixes
- Resolved a softlock that could occur on startup on some devices
- Profile save slots should now correctly display Veteran stars when applicable
Balance Changes
Our past couple updates included massive widespread balance changes in order to dedicate balance time at the end of the year to working on our new Legends game mode for v46. However as the Rogue Legend has ended up being delayed we’ve gone ahead with a small focused list of balance changes mainly responding to a number of points raised by the community this year.
Tower Balance
Bomb Shooter’s base pierce is plenty for the early game but low enough that 1xx crosspath feels too important later, we’re shifting pierce out of crosspath into the base upgrade to alleviate this. Players found the recent increased coverage of 024 recursive too much, but we like the functionality so we’ve tightened the spread for the base xx4 recursive to make 024 about the same as it was before but 004 even tighter. Bomb Blitz has been upgraded to double attack rate from the previous tier.
- 000 Bomb Shooter pierce increased from 14 > 22
- 100 Bigger Bombs pierce increased from 20 > 28
- 200 Heavy Bombs pierce increased from 30 > 38
- 300 Really Big Bombs pierce remains 80
- xx4 Recursive Cluster min cluster distance 30 > 20
- xx4 Recursive Cluster max cluster distance 36 > 30
- xx5 Bomb Blitz attack cooldown reduced from 1 > 0.75
Tack Shooter
Every Tack Shooter Tier 3 needed a different attack rate boost, so to tidy this up we’ve moved much of that rate to the base tack shooter. Given the bottom path Tack is slightly nerfed from this rate change, it is seeing additional pierce to make an overall buff. Finally Blade Shooter has always visually increased the projectile size considerably but not actually changed this value at all, Blades will now actually be bigger.
- 000 Tack Shooter reload rate reduced from 1.4 > 1.12
- 3xx Hot Shots reload rate remains 0.63
- x3x Blade Shooter reload rate reduced from 1.19 > 1.12
- xx3 Tack Sprayer reload rate increased from 1.05 > 1.12
- xx5 The Tack Zone reload rate reduced from 0.2275 > 0.224
- xx3 Tack Sprayer pierce increased from 1 > 2
- xx4 Overdrive pierce remains 2
- x3x Blade Shooter projectile radius increased from 0 > 4
- x4x Blade Maelstrom ability projectile radius increased from 2 > 4
Sniper Monkey
Players have requested a bonus for the 025 Sniper shrapnel given it’s meant to be a pierce crosspath but struggles on anything non-MOAB, so we’d like to try moving the bonus MOAB damage on 024 shrapnel into base damage instead.
- 024 Full Auto Rifle shrapnel damage increased 1 > 2
- 024 Full Auto Rifle shrapnel MOAB bonus reduced 1 > 0
- Applies to xx5 Elite Defender
Monkey Buccaneer
Instead of increasing the amount of cash generated, the Navarch will now increase the number of Merchantmen that can receive the benefit. This is an overall increase to cash generation though requiring more of a space investment to fully utilize.
- Paragon cash per merchant reduced 15 > 10
- Paragon number of merchants benefited increased 20 > 40
Monkey Ace
As efforts to improve the feeling of top path Buccaneer have gone relatively well, projectile seeking has now been greatly improved for the Bottom path Ace as well.
- xx3 Neva-Miss radial darts no longer miss
- xx4 Spectre targeted dart attack seeking improved
Dartling Gunner
Plasma Accelerator’s cost is shifting further down to improve upgrade progression. Rocket Storm is gaining a greater bonus to Ceramics for better cleanup breakpoints, and at T5 damage is being moved out from base attack into the ability for a more significant burst of damage when used as currently the ability is underwhelming compared to the main attack at T5.
- 3xx Laser Cannon $3650 > $3000
- 4xx Plasma Accelerator $11100 > $11750
- x4x Rocket Storm ability deals bonus to Ceramic +1
- x5x M.A.D ability bonus to Ceramic increased 4 > 5
- x5x M.A.D bonus to MOAB-Class reduced 550 > 450
- x5x M.A.D ability Bonus to MOAB-Class increased 18 > 250
Wizard Monkey
Archmage’s secondary attacks are gaining bonus MOAB damage increases as due to Archmage’s unique mechanics, nerfs building up from Dragon's Breath have also indirectly caused an impact for the Archmage. Prince of Darkness’ buff to other Zombies damage doesn't get much interest, so we’re buffing it. Though the expected dps should be high Magus doesn’t fit well into boss dps windows, so we’re reducing its mana drain rate to increase Metamorphosis duration.
- 5xx Archmage fireball bonus to MOAB-Class increased 9 > 27
- 5xx Archmage wall of fire bonus to MOAB-Class increased 1 > 4
- 5xx Archmage dragon's breath bonus to MOAB-Class increased 2 > 6
- xx5 Prince of Darkness buff to zombie damage increased 1 > 3
- Paragon Metamorphosis mana drain reduced 5000 > 4000
Ninja Monkey
Based on the x5x ability Ninja Paragon will now grant bonus range to all non-paragon ninjas, it will provide the Shinobi Tactics buff to any other Ninja in radius, and its global camo detection will also apply to other paragons.
- Paragon now grants increased range to all ninja +10
- Paragon now provides the Shinobi Tactics buff for Ninja in radius
- Paragon now bestows Camo Detection upon other paragons
Druid
As it’s really good, and it’ll still be really good.
- 3xx Druid of the Storm tornado gains a ceramic pierce penalty of +1
- further tiers unaffected
Mermonkey
While we were happy with Arctic Knight’s Ice Jet being a high pierce MOAB layer removal that could with other tower combinations be upgraded to a more effective full-clear, there is not currently enough varied ways of quickly dealing with White Bloon layers, so for a long cooldown based ability this heavy a weakness is too much for now. Bottom path Mermonkey is proving to be very high uptime for the strong support it provides, while still exceptional this is only seeing a light nerf for now.
- x4x Arctic Knight ability projectiles pass over White Bloons unless can damage
- xx3 Alluring Melody tranced Bloon cooldown increased 3 > 4
- xx4 Symphonic Resonance tranced Bloon cooldown increased 3 > 4
- xx5 Final Harmonic Trance Bloon cooldown unchanged
Spike Factory
While this won’t change the effective DPS of spike storm at all, the ability will now occur over a slightly longer duration to reduce the effective ‘instapop’ on many targets and give more time to see what’s going on.
- x4x Spike Storm ability duration increased 1s > 2s
- x4x Spike Storm ability attack cooldown increased 0.02 > 0.04
- xx5 Permaspike unchanged
Monkey Village
Primary Expertise is gaining enough damage to allow it to continue to 1 shot MOABs until round 100, but in exchange it will attack slower for an overall power increase.
- 5xx Primary Expertise bonus damage to Ceramic/MOAB increased 190 > 270
- 5xx Primary Expertise attack cooldown increased 2.5 > 3
Engineer
Now that Ultraboost has an initial cooldown we are again allowing it to be used between rounds. Middle crosspath feels too good for Bloontraps because of the massive quality of life it brings, so we’re pushing the DPS more for top crosspath by allowing Double Gun to also double the projectiles of Sentries. The expensive XXL Trap's cash generation comes in too late given Bloontraps fall off as an income generator in the late game, so we’re reducing the upgrade cost and increasing the cash generation that it brings.
- x5x Ultraboost can activate between rounds false > true
- 103 Double Gun Sentries shoot twin projectiles
- xx5 XXXL Trap collected Bloons cash multiplier increased 2 > 3
- xx5 XXXL Trap price reduced 48,000 > 45,000
Beast Handler
Max power Great White drags in MOAB's too quickly which actually causes it to thrash less from this and overall perform worse, so a minimum drag time has been set. Megalodon's 'not 1 shotting' damage feels too low compared to when it is able to 1shot, so we’re increasing this damage.
- 3xx Max MOAB grab time increased 0 > 6s
- 5xx Megalodon damage increased 350 > 700
- 5xx Megalodon damage range increased 400 > 1400
Hero Balance
Ezili
Ezili’s first bonus against MOABs is swapping forward to an earlier level so she can do something in time for the first MOAB on round 40.
- Ezili Lv8 bonus MOAB damage moved to Lv6
- Ezili Lv6 DoT duration/rate moved to Lv8
Etienne
Etienne's final level activated UCAV power is being increased
- Lv20 UCAV ability active cast damage increased 10 > 12
Geraldo
Geraldo is coming into line with himself, though as he still feels too far ahead of other heroes we are scaling up some of the shop prices to more justify the power level.
- Lv1 Creepy Idol price increased $100 > 120
- Lv1 Jar of Pickles price increased $100 > 150
- Lv4 Tube of Amaz-O-Glue price increased $100 > 150
- Lv8 Gerry’s Fire price increased $600 > 650
- Lv10 Pet Rabbit price increased $1500 > $2000
- Lv12 Genie Bottle price increased $2000 > 2500
Corvus
We don’t want to knock him down hard before the holidays, but Corvus’ placement cost is being increased and Spirit move speed is being shifted from passive power into the Haste spell with Haste’s cooldown also being cut so it can almost always be available when required at the cost of active mana management.
- Lv1 placement cost increased $925 > 1025
- Lv1 Spirit maximum move speed reduced 125 > 100
- Lv3 Haste cooldown reduced 15s > 5
Powers
While working on the new Battle Cat power we concluded a number of existing powers that haven’t had love since launch are no longer living up to a worthy level of power in the modern state of Bloons, so we’ve made modifications to some of these to make them more useful for the cost. In particular, we felt like there were very few times to ever use MOAB Mines over Super Monkey Storms so these have been given a considerably more powerful single target use case to use in situations in which Super Monkey Storm would normally struggle.
- MOAB Mine damage increased 300 > 5000
- MOAB Mine can now re-hit same target & children targets with cooldown 1s
- Super Monkey Storm damage increased 2000 > 4000
- Time Stop no longer slows tower attacks as much 70% > 40%
- Energizing Totem range increased 40 > 54
- Camo Trap grants 2 for every purchase
- Glue Trap grants 2 for every purchase
Paragons
The Paragon formula applying a flat +100p to any attacks has been limiting our design in building low-pierce balanced attacks for Paragon upgrades, in particular we could not embody the design of the Tack Shooter’s 1 pierce meteor attack due to this, so we have lowered this flat pierce bonus for further review.
- Paragon Formula: Flat pierce per degree reduced 1 > 0.1
- Paragons still also receive an additional +1% pierce per degree
Powers Knowledge
- Powerful Monkey Storm bonus damage increased 300 > +1000 (+25%)
- Mauling MOAB Mines bonus damage increased 100 > 1250 (+25%)
- Longer Boosts bonus duration increased 2s > 5s
- Longer Time Stop bonus duration increased 3s > 5
Bosses
Blast has been quite unforgiving in Boss Rush events, so we’re squeezing in a reduction to both health and heat gain within this mode.
- Blastapopoulos Boss Rush heat gain on kill reduced 0.02 > 0.015
- Blastapopoulos Boss Rush starting health reduced 400 > 350
Super Monkey - The Monkey Temple
This is now a ‘part 2/3 temple rework', the actual bonuses have not been the focus of changes this time, instead we have shuffled around the different benefits gained from temple sacrifices to set the stage in balancing out the different categories.
Too much is changed here to fully detail every sacrifice tier, but for now the same bonuses exist but moved around:
- Temple main attack damage increases have been moved from Primary to Military
- Temple main attack pierce increases have all been moved to Magic
- Temple main attack projectile size increases have been moved from Military to Magic
- Temple Sacrifices follow a more consistent unlock pattern, first bonus adding a secondary attack, second bonus improving the power of the Temple’s main attack, third bonus adding or improving a secondary attack, and so on.
We’re interested to hear your feedback in a few weeks, but for a future update we are now considering another step after this is to make temple sacrifices less wide but deeper. One possible option for this that we have discussed is reducing the max number of categories of sacrifice from 3 to 2, but raising the limits that can be invested in a single category to grant the same or more total power from investing in fewer categories. For this to work however each category needs to have a defined use case to pick it over the other categories, we’ve taken one step in this direction with the newly buffed Primary Blades attack dealing massive damage only at close range, and are considering doubling down on the Military category of sacrifices functioning much better at a far range while Magic sits well in the middle.
Looking Forward
Huge thanks for another awesome year! We so appreciate you reading these notes, playing and replaying the game, giving us feedback, participating in community, sharing fanart, making memes, posting videos, streaming your best moments, and helping us remember who it is that we’re building this game for.
And double huge thanks for supporting us in the Pocket Gamer voting, where this amazing community threw incredible support behind Bloons TD 6 and selecting it as the Best Game of the Year. This is absolutely astounding, and while we feel immensely proud of the care and craft we’ve put into BTD6, we are equally grateful for and humbled by the outpouring of your support that made this award happen!
Here we are at the 45th major update to the game in 6.5 years, and next year we’ll hit the 50th update. We have big plans for 2025, which we’ll share in the new year after we’ve had time to confirm our schedules in the planning discussions that follow this release. Until then here are a few updates so that you are not left wondering about previously mentioned features.
- Those who have been following along may note we planned to release our first Legends DLC along with version 46, but there was even more we wanted to add to truly make it a full game within the game, so we hope you won’t mind waiting until update 47 in early February.
- Game Editor also continues to make great strides, adding both functionality and improved UI. Current thinking is to launch this as its own 47.x update in March.
- Console content updates are out on PlayStation and in submission on Xbox.
As we head into the end of the year, we wish you and all of your favorite Monkeys lots of gaming time together, and absolutely awesomer holiday season, and the very best for 2025 - thank you from all of us at Ninja Kiwi!